“Maybe it’s the treacherous geography or all the active volcanoes, but there’s just something special about South American death metal. From Mortem’s sadly overlooked De Natura Demonium to the primal brutality of Atomic Aggressor, many of these bands have a certain other-worldliness that just isn’t found elsewhere.” Just want you thought your year end lists were safe.
“I love combining metal with long-distance running. I find that reducing myself to a wheezing heap is a surprisingly effective way to evaluate new music: if an album makes me say “fuck this!” and throw my iPod into the nearest drainage ditch, it probably isn’t worth revisiting. With Macabre Omen’s sophomore effort Gods of War – At War, the effect was quite the opposite.” You missed the battle of the year!
“When I hear ‘sludge,’ I have a very specific sound in mind. I want wretched vocals, whiskey-soaked guitar riffs, and lyrics about living at the absolute nadir of human existence. I want it to live up to its name, flooding the sonic landscape with riffs that sound like they were written in an abandoned warehouse during an opium binge. Thus, I was a bit disappointed when first researching Ontario’s Adrenechrome and finding that the ‘sludge’ tag often used to describe them is, alas, very loosely applied.” What’s wrong with happy-go-lucky sludge?
“Gather round, I have a story for ye. Back in 2002, a Phoenix-based death metal group called Vehemence released an album called God Was Created, a work that escaped widespread popularity to essentially become the little engine that could – a cult classic of the genre, if you will.” As snobbish metal elitists, we like cult classics.
“So Hideous occupy an interesting niche for me. As a post-black group with orchestral flourishes, their sound is unique enough to stand out in an over-saturated genre, but it’s never been compelling enough to make me a fan.” New York City continues to pump out some interesting variants on black metal. Must be something in the hot dogs.
“There’s precious little information to be found about Twin Lords anywhere, and Shift is the New York duo’s debut album after a 2012 demo. Furthermore, the music itself offers no easy points of comparison. I’ve seen them tagged as everything from “progressive” to “sludge” to “powerviolence,” and having listened to the album myself numerous times, I’m still not sure what I’d classify Twin Lords as.” How can we do our job if we can’t pigeonhole into neat little boxes?
“Back when I was a snot-nosed college senior rolling around with my windows down and blasting Black Breath’s newly released Sentenced to Life. At the time, I felt so hip for listening to this so-called “Entombedcore” right as it was catching on, when bands like All Pigs Must Die, Early Graves, and Black Breath themselves were at the forefront of a sound that combined the throat-shredding fury of mid-aughties hardcore with a guitar tone and riffing style heavily inspired by Swedish death.” Remember those carefree days of youthful metal elitism?
“I imagine the band spreading their metaphorical buttcheeks to draw in the atmosphere of first-wave acts like Hellhammer and early Bathory, letting it fester in their intestines long enough to give it their own unique stench.” It must be Enema Thursday!
“Vrath has fingerprints all over the place, so I suppose it’s not much of a surprise it’s taken nearly six years for us to get Hubris In Excelsis, Scythian’s long-awaited sophomore album. Working in earnest since around 2012, Vrath stated it was his intent to absolutely destroy the debut, but To Those was a beast of an album – death-thrash that was primal, huge in scope, and savagely catchy.” Six years in the making? What does he think this is, a funeral doom project!
“Ah, Krisiun. Your militant drumming, battering riffs, and enraged vocals have earned you a place on quite a few of my “wake up the neighbors” playlists over the years. While calling you an institution may be a stretch, you’re certainly a band of workhorses, belching out no-bullshit death metal as a fraternal trio since 1990, and serving as a constant reminder that Brazil is more than just nice tushes, dense rainforests, and a Terry Gilliam film about a dystopian bureaucracy that would make FEMA shiver.” The angry wind came blowing in, from across the sea….
